Case summaries
An application for a revision of a final court decision of the Swiss Federal Court is only admissible if the applicant presents new relevant facts or evidence which he was not able to provide in previous proceedings even if he had acted with due diligence.
If the new evidence relates to another person’s hearing files (in the case at hand a relative’s hearing protocol before the Swiss asylum authority) the fact that the files could not be retrieved during the proceedings cannot be attributed to the applicant if he lacked the required consent from the person concerned to access the files. By rule of principle, it is the asylum authority’s duty to consult relevant documents for the assessment of an application which is notably the case for statements made by family relatives if the factual circumstances on which the respective applications are based are closely related.
The Court found no violation of the Convention given that the applicants would have had access to a genuine and effective possibility of submitting arguments against their expulsion had they entered lawfully into Spain – they did not have any “cogent reasons” for not using the border procedures available at designated entry points. As such, the lack of an individualised procedure for their removal was the consequence of their own conduct.
The administrative detention of an Afghan national was imposed on the basis of a procedural error due to the lack of relevant documentation and unjustified information by the French authorities (Prefect and Prosecutor).
When State Parties do not examine an application for international protection in its mertis based on a safe third country clause, Article 3 still requires that they apply a thorough and comprehensive legal procedure to assess the existence of such risk by looking into updated sources regarding the situation in the receiving third country. Hungary violated Article 3 by failing to conduct an efficient and adequate assessment when applying the safe third country clause for Serbia.
Article 5 cannot be considered as ratione materiae applicable to the Röszke transit zone; the applicants' stay there involved a short waiting time in order for Hungary to verify their right to enter, they had entered on their own initiative and they were free to leave the area in the direction of Serbia. The conditions in the transit zone were not found to breach Article 3 because of the restrictive measure's short duration, the possibility for human contact and the applicants' awareness of the procedure.
The CJEU ruled on the scope of the right to an effective remedy provided for in Article 39 of the Asylum Procedures Directive and in Article 13 of the Returns Directive.
The CJEU ruled on the scope of the right to an effective remedy provided for in Article 46 of the (Recast) Asylum Procedures Directive and in Article 13 of the Returns Directive.
After being notified of his return decision, set to take place on the same day, the applicant requested an interim measure on Article 3 ECHR grounds in the morning but was nonetheless expelled to Morocco in the afternoon. The Court found no violation of Article 3, regarding the applicant’s expulsion to Morocco, by taking into account subsequent information. It found a violation of Article 34 of the Convention, owing to the fact that the applicant had no sufficient time to file a request to the Court, hence running the risk back then of being potentially subjected to treatment prohibited by the Convention.
The applicant, an Algerian national convicted in France for terrorism and banned from entering French territory in 2006, was sent back to Algeria in 2014, on the day he was notified of the rejection of his asylum claim and of the issuance of his return order. The Court found that the French authorities violated Article 34 of the Convention by carrying out the applicant’s transfer despite the Court’s interim measure. It also found that France violated Article 3, in the light of the general information regarding the situation of people suspected of international terrorism in Algeria.
The Court submitted a request for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union on the requirement of an automatic suspension of the execution of a negative decision on applications for international protection under EU law.
The possibility to lodge an asylum application in practice is a prerequisite for the effective protection of those in need of international protection. If access to the asylum procedure is not guaranteed by the national authorities, asylum applicants cannot benefit from the guarantees afforded to those under the asylum procedure, leaving them subject to detention at any time. The length of time in which it took for the applicant to lodge his asylum application violated his rights under Article 13 read in conjunction with Article 3 ECHR.